This pdf from Adventureaweek.comis 41 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving 36 pages of content, so let’s check this one out, shall we?

This is an adventure-review and as such, the following contains SPOILERS. I encourage potential players to skip to the conclusion.

Still here? All right! This adventures starts off rather simple: Yuri Statel, sage of Rybalka, needs some special kind of mushroom (perhaps for his drug cocktails?) and tasks the PCs with contacting famed devil-slayer and hermit Cual Beartooth (whom they might know from earlier adventures). The problem is – said hermit lives in the aptly-named Dark Wood, where perils abound. After being harassed by swarms of deadly creatures (like evil ravens, rats and even vampire spawn), they reach Cual, who promptly points them in the right direction. Overtly-ambitious PCs may also slay a certain Troll, who unfortunately also acts to keep the devils of Dark Wood in check – his demise will potentially have unpleasant consequences in future adventures, but that only as an additional piece of information.

Unfortunately for the PCs, the mushrooms have already been picked – fortunately for them, though, the perpetrator is a gnomish wizard who left a trail of crumbs leading to his ice-wall-sealed cave. Said gnome comes out at night and is willing to haggle with the PCs – for two sacks of food, craddleberries and gold. If the PCs acquiesce to the demands, he sends them off to the jagged crags, where the berries grow amidst thorns and near a tri-tongue monstrosity. Unfortunately, teh gnome’s accomplice, a babau demon also tries to bully the PCs into giving up even more of their loot/pillage/kill them.

Once they return to the mischievous gnome, he sends them home with shrooms – unfortunately, though, the wrong ones. On their return to the gnome, the PCs are hopefully furious, especially once they realize that gnome and babau are accomplices – seemingly caught in the act, the two retreat into the cavern and it is here that the adventure turn to the more sadistic end – the gnome and demon retreat into a gauntlet of traps, and what traps! From a fake puzzlebox to a lake of oil that is ignited, a lake of sulphuric acid-laden water, a radioactive island set up like a beacon in a small subterranean lake, to zombie pits, ratswarms etc., the PCs are in for quite a ride! If they can defeat the two villains at the end of the gauntlet, they might also finally find the rare mushrooms they sought as well as a secret treasure hoard that contains a neat magical amulet, which also gets A LOT of background story in the back – be sure to check this out. It should also be mentioned, that the final battle comes with a battle-mat-style map of the cavern with its natural rock pillars.

The adventure ends with full stats for 3.5 and PFRPG-versions of the antagonists

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any jarring glitches or the like. Layout adheres to adventureaweek.com‘s two-column standard and this one comes fully bookmarked and with herolab-files. Special mention deserve, as always in adventureaweek.com-modules, the cartography: The dungeon is actually 3 pages of maps and we get *drums* PLAYER-FRIENDLY MAPS! Yes Key-less, letter-less, but unfortunately showing the secret passage. Oh well, but that’s a step in the right direction! The battle-mat-style map for the final battle is nice and generally, while the plot per se starts like a simple fetch-quest, it turns nasty VERY quick. This feint is a neat idea to catch the PCs off guard and the dungeon is very well done. The hazards and environmental traps are clever, downright sadistic at times and make the whole experience really feel like running a deadly gauntlet. On the content-side, this is also one of adventureaweek.com‘s modules that offers quite a bit bang for buck – 36 pages is perfectly fine for the price-point. That being said, I really enjoyed this module and in the end will settle for a final verdict of 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

Comments